Saturday, November 11, 2006

I'm The Queen of Hats!

Who knew?

Okay, maybe I'm not the Queen of Hats, but if you play along, you can have a free hat pattern. Some Elannites have been asking about hats, so here are my humble offerings.

Not that I've actually made all that many hats...but I do have a few favorite patterns. Doug's hat is a simple ribbed hat knit flat on 5mm needles with Bernat Denim Style yarn. The hat pattern was free on the ball band of the yarn. He loves this hat and wears it all the time. I'm going to make him a new one exactly the same with Elann's new Super Tweed. I'm expecting my box on Tuesday.

My hat in the above photo is one that I cobbled together on my own. I wear it all the time. Here are various incarnations of it.

This is the hat I'm wearing in the photo. It was knit in the round and has a garter stitched band and stripes with some garter stitch bits thrown in from time to time.

This is the exact same pattern for a hat knit in the round, done with the garter stitch band, but no garter stitched details in the stripes.

This is the hat with ear-flaps. Well...one ear flap because I wanted to be able to show the plain side too. I'll add the other flap...later.

If you're an observant knitter, you'll notice that the ear-flap side is the "bad side" because that's where the round joins and the stripes go a bit wonky. I do my best when weaving in tails to even things up, but there's always a bit of flotz. No problem if you don't stripe. You can always put the wonk at the back, but I like to center an ear-flap over that part. Tends to distract the eye away from it IMO. Or you can be super anal and figure out a way to keep the overlapped bits from showing.

When I knit the hat without flaps, I wear the seam at the back.

This is Doug in the hat to show you that on his fat-head (I have permission to say this), it is kind of a beanie. My kids and I have the same size head. Doug has a super-sized head. You'll want to consider these things if you make this hat using my pattern.

Same hat having a shot by itself. I like bright colourful striped hats. Especially on kids. But the hat can be made plain or with different stripes or whatever turns your crank. I was thinking of making the iCord on the other side blue or charcoal.

If you want to make this hat in any of its incarnations...here is a FREE recipe, courtesy of me. I'm such a nice person!

*Take note: I am telling you how I made MY hat. You will have to decide how wide and deep and all that you want your hat to be.

Matt's Hat (I call it this because I made an ear-flaps version for my 13-yr-old nephew Matt last Christmas, and apparently he did not take it off all winter). I made Matt's hat about 6" long before shaping the crown and it came down right to his eyes. Teenagers sometimes like that kind of thing.

Cast on 64 stitches on the 16" circular, PM, join in round and knit a garter stitch band (beginning by purling the first row). Do I need to mention that you get garter stitch in the round by alternating knit/purl rows?? I begin with purl and knit 1 1/2 - 2" of garter (5 ridges on my hat), ending after a knit row.

Then I knit another 3 3/4 of main body of hat (total of 5 1/2" from the beginning, or longer if you want) before shaping the crown.

I shape the crown by placing markers every 8 stitches (total of 8 sections) and knitting 2 together (the last 2 stitches before the marker) every other row (plain knitting between) until I have 8 stitches left. I cut the yarn, thread on a needle and pick up the remaining 8 loops purl-wise off the DPN's, pull snug and fasten on the inside of the hat. You can use the yarn tail to fasten on a pom-pom, if you MUST have one.

Earflaps: hold hat with brim up and crown down, with RS facing you. Count 8 stitches from the center seam to the right. P/U and knit 15 st. from that point. Knit three rows in garter.

On 4th row (RS) K1, ssk, knit to last three st. K2tog, K1Next row: knit

Repeat two rows until 3 st. remain. Use the 3 st to carry on in iCord for 12-14" or whatever length you like. I sometimes change colour for the iCord, as I did in red here. When the iCord is long enough, I draw the the yarn through the 3 live stitches on the end and draw it up through the cord to hide it. Then I tie a knot with the bottom inch of two of the iCord. Some people make pom-poms for the ends, or a fringe, or whatever. Some people eat cars.

You repeat the flap on the other side by folding the hat neatly in half and line up the other flap to match. Very scientific. Some people count to make it perfect.

Have fun!!

One more hat 'cuz blogless-B specifically asked for it.

This is a hat I made with Bernat Camoflage yarn (I like camo enough to make it with acrylic if that's all that's availabe). I made it using the exact same method from this free elann.com pattern:

http://elann.com/ShowFreePattern.asp?Id=6024

As you can see, the hat is made by knitting two hats together and then punching one into the other. It is completely reversible. I never wear that noisy half showing. I don't like it. But I do like the more camo type camo.

Elann's free pattern for "Harlequin Hat" tells you how to do the provisional cast on so that you can knit one hat going one way, and then pick up the bottom stitches and knit the other hat going the other way. Cool eh? Makes for a nice warm hat. Elann's pattern is knit in sock yarn. I made mine with worsted/aran weight on 5mm needles.

I cast on 84 stitches, worked for 6 inches before shaping the brim, and then decreased for the brim over 7 sets of 12 stitches.

5 comments:

Thank you, thank you, Oh QOH!! My DGSs-by-love in Alaska will thank you when they reach spring with their ears still attached. I really appreciate the trouble you took to write up the patterns and take the photos; tell Doug thanks, too.